1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an audio device constituting an audio system, together with at least one external device connected to the audio device via a communication line.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, there is known a mixing console, which is used in a concert hall or the like, for regulating the levels of audio signals and frequency responses output from a lot of microphones or electric or electronic musical instruments, mixing them into some mixing groups, and transmitting the mixing groups to a power amplifier. As an example, reference is herein made to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-374587. As this type of mixing console, there is known a mixing console including a console unit and an engine unit connected to the console unit via a communication line. In this type of mixing console, generally the console unit is installed between seats distant from the stage or installed in a console room, which is located rearward of the seats, and the engine unit connected to the console unit is installed in the vicinity of the stage. An operator who operates the mixing console regulates the volume and tones of audio signals of instrument sounds or singing voice to a condition that the performance is expressed most appropriately with a mixing operation while checking the sounds heard by the audience by operating various panel controls provided in the console unit. The engine unit has a function of mixing the audio signals and is connected to a plurality of input units and output units which are analog and digital input units and analog and digital output units via communication lines. Additionally, the engine unit includes a plurality of input channels for assigning a plurality of microphone and line inputs entered from the input units, and it mixes the audio signals from the input channels according to control signals from the console unit and outputs them to a plurality of output channels. The outputs from the output channels are supplied to the output units and the sounds are emitted from a speaker connected to the output units.
In the case where the mixing console is brought into and installed in a concert hall, the time allowed for the installation work is often extremely short and it is therefore necessary to perform various installation operations rapidly. Furthermore, the console unit and the engine unit are generally connected in cascade connection, but the distance between the console unit and the engine unit cannot be long in cascade connection, and it is often necessary to connect them via Ethernet to make the distance long instead of the regular cascade connection. Consequently, it is suggested that a long distance connection is achieved between the console unit and the engine unit by providing a cabling unit, which performs a conversion between the cascade and Ethernet, between the console unit and the engine unit. Furthermore, the engine unit is connected to a plurality of input units and output units. In this manner, a worker needs to connect the console unit, the engine unit, the cabling unit, and the plurality of input units and output units while checking the connections therebetween in the conventional installation work of the mixing console. It, however, has been a time-consuming and complicated work to check correctness of the connections among ports of the units, because both of the cascade transmission line and the Ethernet transmission line have a considerable length. Therefore, it has been difficult to reduce the installation work time. Moreover, the input units and the output units each have a structure in which an audio plug-in card is installed in each unit, and therefore the worker needs to insert the audio plug-in card into each slot of the plurality of input units and output units while checking the audio plug-in card, which leads to a further increase in the installation work time.
In order to solve the above problem, conventionally an application program is executed on a computer before installing the mixing console to preset a connection method between devices or units necessary for the mixing console and to specify which audio plug-in card should be inserted into which slot of each unit. Thereafter, at the start of the installation work, the console unit is connected to the engine unit and they are turned on, and then the preset setting information is loaded from the computer to the console unit. Thereafter, various units are connected to the engine unit. During the connection, actual connection information is compared with the loaded setting information: if an incorrect unit is connected, a warning signal indicating as such is output. The same is true in the case of subsequently inserting an audio plug-in card into various units: if an incorrect audio plug-in card is inserted into the slot of one of the various units, a warning signal indicating as such is output. This reduces the installation work time of the mixing console.
Conventionally, a user has made the data of all components of the mixing console in advance for the installation assist program. Consequently, the user needs to specify the settings of the positions of the slots into which the audio plug-in cards are inserted, which leads to a problem that the data generation itself becomes complicated and thus it takes a log time to generate the data. Additionally, even if the user wants to check only the connection of required devices while skipping the detailed settings temporarily, the user needs to generate the data of all components and therefore cannot easily use the mixing console.